The Purity of Trust

To trust is to be human, to err is to be human, to trust again once erred is also to be human. Trust is fundamental to any society, system, or group that wants rules-based order. Trust is the theme in every facet of our lives. Do you trust your job? Do you trust your partner? Do you even trust yourself? We always question if we trust others and even ourselves. This is because trust defines our relationship with everyone and anything we deal with.

We live our lives with trust, often based on how much we trust people or systems. We must ask ourselves, what is trust? Most implicitly know it, but let’s explicitly define it:

Trust: firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something. - Oxford Dictionary

In other words, trust is routed in reliability if something or someone is reliable or unreliable. Trust is a prerequisite for a system, organization, or even people to function synchronously. Arguably trust is the very foundation, only bested by self-interest/greed.

Decentralized technologies are the epitome of libertarianism. The ultimate form of “decide for yourself” on a technological level. In all decentralized technology environments, you are in control. No one can capture your data, spy on you, or even know it is you. You are in full charge of your data and all that it entails. You are fully responsible for yourself and fully responsible to the community as well.

Decentralized technologies from Blockchain like Ethereum, Bitcoin blockchains, crypto wallets, and even NFTs. These all have a foundation of mathematical verification and social trust. Some of that social trust is given because of the mathematical and computational verification the technologies and platforms went through.

Mathematical and computational verifications are based on trust themselves. We trust that the developers, the mathematicians, and the researchers are honest in their calculations with no biases in their work. To trust in a decentralized system is to trust in everyone who worked on it, and to trust a verification process that may have been corrupted.

With that in mind, we are at the forefront of the decentralized age slowly creeping in…can we trust in these decentralized systems? Can we trust in the decentralized void?

Trust in The Decentralized Void…With Stakeholders?

Decentralized technologies have a foundation rooted in changing the status quo. Decentralization is libertarianism almost personified in a technology sense. As decentralization takes the future, it becomes our new void in the internet; how can we trust in it, ourselves, and each other?

We established that we are at the forefront of the decentralized age. With that, the question above should be first and foremost in our minds. “can we trust in it, ourselves and each other?” To effectively answer, this we need to know exactly who in this sector deserves our trust. Who exactly deserves it so we can see decentralization pushed to its limits? No need for further questioning because we already know the answer to this implicitly:

Developers:

Researchers: Expert individuals who fix and hypothesize potential future vulnerabilities in the decentralized system. This also encompasses cryptographers.

Node Operators: Individuals or organizations that run nodes on decentralized networks; they would literally provide computational resources for the user/organizations in the decentralized void.

Network Engineers: Maintain underlying editable technologies in the decentralized realm. Decentralized internet is still the internet thus network engineers are required.

Organizations:

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): Self-governing organizations that utilize smart contracts to manage membership, resource distribution, and vote distribution on organization plans, structure, and future.

Government:

Economic Blocs: Governments in one continuous economic union to bolster regional or shared financial interests. (e.g., AU, EU, ASEAN).

National Governments: Countries and their governments have the right to make policies on the technologies allowed in their states. They also have the right to disallow or allow certain technologies.

Users:

Users: The users who utilize the decentralized internet for various purposes, such as communication, commerce, and information sharing. This is most of us, the decentralized internet/void’s users.

Businesses and Organizations: Entities that operate on the decentralized internet, offering services or products to users.

These are all the stakeholders if a decentralized internet were to take hold, a total of 8 of them. These three are the most important:

1. Users
2. National Governments
3. Researchers

These three are the most important because if these 3 cannot trust decentralization…..then it will always be limited and caped in its scope and progress. Users make up the system base itself, governments control its spread and adoption worldwide. Researchers determine the safety and progress of the technology itself. IF decentralized technologies can gain the trust of the Users and Governments, then they will succeed. To do that, researchers (aka developers) need to prove that their technology is trustworthy.

Thinking and believing that trusting in the decentralized void is possible and preferred could be considered correct. To trust in it is to trust ourselves, each other, and the technologies themselves.

Trust The Seven Foundations

What makes decentralized tech trustable? Simple. The core functionality, security, and data privacy methods are embedded in the different but eventual synchronous decentralized systems. In addition, all decentralized applications require unique functionality to attain usability.

What are the foundations of a blockchain network? The very backbone of the basis of a decentralized system, for all applications, it's at least these 7 foundation variables:

Data Structure:

aka BLOCKS IN THE ACTUAL BLOCKCHAIN: These are the actual blocks in a blockchain as they literally store all the user’s data. All user data is stored using a cryptographic hash mechanism of the previous block in the chain. In this way, they make a chain of blocks, aka BLOCKCHAIN. Through this process, it also creates an immutable ledger of all transactions on the blockchain past, present, and ready for the future.

Security:

The forefront of Blockchain security is….tolerance aka, constant-functionality. The ability of the network to function correctly even if some blocks in the chain are corrupted or non-functioning.

Governance:

The rules govern how consensus is reached in the network community and how blocks are further added to the chain (what can they give/offer that gives them trust). These configurable settings by the network block majority owner define the behavior of the network, such as block time, difficulty, transaction fees, etc. (depending on the application time).

Consensus Mechanism:

These are the ways the blocks in the blockchain are made, validated, and therefore trusted by the decentralized system and its users. The two most common consensus mechanisms are:

Proof of Work (PoW): This mechanism requires miners to solve complex computational puzzles to validate blocks (and earn rewards). Trust is given because it takes expensive hardware with high processing ranges to achieve this. Thus, trust is achieved because of the financial and time stake given to the block. It is the most widely used consensus algorithm, but it’s energy-intensive.

Proof of Stake (PoS): In PoS, validators are selected based on the amount of cryptocurrency they stake. This mechanism is generally more energy-efficient than PoW but it runs a risk of blockchain monopolization and crypto monopolization by groups/companies (maybe even extremely wealthy individuals).

Cryptography: There are four main shapes of cryptography that go into the blockchain process.

Hash Functions: Used to create unique digital footprints of data, ensuring data integrity and preventing tampering and theft of users’ data. (trust by user data security)

Public-Key Cryptography: Enables secure encryption using a pair of keys; a public key and a private key. (Trust by standard cryptographic verification).

Incentive Mechanisms: Rewards: To incentivize trust and maintain network security, users get rewarded for their contributions (e.g., mining, validating).

Fees: Transaction fees that are paid to the network to process and validate them. In this way, trust is given through financial backing.

Scalability: These are the two main scalability solutions you may find a blockchain using.

Sharding: Dividing the network into smaller shards to improve transaction speed, however, sharding causes blockchain strain.

Layer 2 Solutions: Off-chain solutions that can process transactions more efficiently and at a lower cost. However, security vulnerabilities are more common and thus corruption of data is a real risk.

There are real decentralized applications that have, at least, met the bare minimum stakeholder’s approval and have the 7 foundational variables in place. Even at this moment, they are growing all in different ways. They are all trying to make the decentralized void….the decentralized world real. Of course, their first step is the prioritization of the social space. That is why they are all social-based. The most common and or innovative of them are ĀutOs, Mastodon, and Lens Protocol.

Let’s dive a little into these different decentralized social media platforms, to give ourselves a better scope.

Āut/Os, they tout themselves as “The Operating System of Yourself” and could be said to be the most innovative. They are a social network, however, they are specified. They are a social network for blockchain developers or “contributors” to blockchain. On their blockchain, you can even monetize your own content. Thus, your reputation and trust/leverage increase the more you contribute to the blockchain network itself (monetarily, programmatically, community development, etc.). In this way, you’re only trusted if you put in the prerequisites for trust over time.

Mastodon is the most popular decentralized social media network; it has over 3 million users. It is essentially a major blogging site (think Tumblr or Facebook-esque). How does Mastodon gain the user’s trust? Community-centered leadership. Each individual can create their own communities with their own themes. Even communities within communities. In this way, if a user finds their way to the community it mostly means they were searching for it. This means they had an intrinsic interest in finding and joining the community, thus also interest in ensuring the community stays safe for everyone and themselves. Their trust is gained from community growth incentives.

Lens Protocol is the most expansive. They have an ever-expanding decentralized platform with multiple decentralized applications (dApps) on one chain. This means interconnectivity and additional monetizable functionality for the company. How do their users gain trust? Your profile is your currency. It’s your value. You can mint your profile and turn it into a digital asset (NFT) along with anything attached to it. Then you can sell it off on Opensea or, preferably, one of their NFT-related platforms on the same chain.

In other words, the more trustworthy you are, the more money you are worth. Build trust by engaging with the community, and people and in building your brand…which quite literally builds you in this case.

To be in the decentralized void means your online reputation translates into your real-world reputation. This means your reputation should have incentives in the real world to continue using and propelling the applications. Their success and your work on them leads to your success.

When the outside world and the decentralized void mix, ideally, you would be able to rent a car, increase your credit score, and even get better jobs or universities with your decentralized social media value. The better you are on the network, the better your life in person too. Being an excellent decentralized digital citizen would make you an even better citizen in person too. HOWEVER, THERE ARE BARRIERS TO THIS REALITY!

What are the supposed barriers to this reality? Well, we already mentioned them didn’t we, the stakeholders? Even if the technical foundations are established, stakeholders still need to approve and then positively engage with the technology. Even in a situation where most of the stakeholders cannot approve of the tech if the most important 3 approve, the technology will still proliferate its influence to reality. Let’s quickly recap, who are the 3 most important ones? Users, Governments, and Researchers.

What’s an example of these 3 stakeholders (at least) agreeing on using social media that can increase the average citizenry’s life? An example would be WeChat in China, of course! The only difference is WeChat is completely centralized and integrated into a state’s processes whilst the technologies we stated above aren’t. But hold on, let’s see the ways in which WeChat proliferates through Chinese society:

WeChat Pay: A widely all-encompassing payment system where the users pay for goods and services with a mobile wallet.

WeChat Shop: A platform for businesses to sell products.

Mini Programs: Gaming and food delivery services to online shopping and travel booking.

Digital ID: WeChat's ID feature can be used for various government services, such as making appointments, applying for permits, and recognizing your identity.

WeChat Games: Gaming on the application.

Ride-hailing: WeChat partners with ride-hailing services.

Food Delivery: Users can order food from various restaurants and have it delivered.

Ticketing: WeChat offers ticketing services for events in cities and transportation.

CrossPlatform Login: Many other apps and sites allow signup and login with a WeChat ID.

WeChat offers these services and more. A social service ingrained in every facet of daily life. The only difference between it and a decentralized platform is that it is centralized. A decentralized platform can grow, scale, and expand its services and dApps to emulate the ones above and more. The only thing WeChat doesn’t have as of now is a citizen points system. Even if they did implement it….or when they do…who can say no? It is already ingrained in people’s daily lives.

If a centralized application can do it, then a decentralized one can as well. The closest application currently to the above, in the decentralized world, would be Āut/Os by Aut Labs. Although even they are starting in a private enterprise and have not gained government approval and are still gaining more users day by day. Another handicap may also be their user audience. WeChat is for everyone. Āut/Os is specifically for people in the developer community. For it to succeed, it needs to branch out, become less technical and programmatic in nature, and allow more diverse audiences.

That’s one major problem that dApps will face and will limit their growth. In order to gain value on the network, the more technical-minded are always the more prized. The less tech-enabled the less stake/reputation you would get in the network. In other words, in order to gain trust in the decentralized society (as it stands) one must already be well-initiated into the tech. Unfair barrier and unnecessary for the masses.

Foundations of the Void

Overall, can you trust in the decentralized void? The dApps? A future where the internet is filled with decentralized apps? Yes, you can trust it. Not only that, but for the sake of mine, yours, and all our futures..we should go out of our way to promote it. Simply because, dApps, especially the social-based ones, are the one and only true way to maintain complete control of your reputation on the internet and your data. The backbone of society is trust, and it will always be so forever on. The foundations of gaining trust are the same: experience in the topic/group, monetary contribution, community contribution, and group genuineness. It has been so and will forever be so.

Even if the decentralized void becomes true, there will still be some parts of it that are untrustable. Some organizations/individuals may tout and boost decentralization, but they just aren’t worth our trust on a moral level. Same with researchers and developers; what they research/develop can change depending on who’s funding them. So, can we ever have a completely trust-filled society in the decentralized internet? NOPE! BUT! It’s as close as we’ll ever get!…..probably ¯\(ツ)/¯